Many homeowners choose to increase the ascetic value of their home by landscaping their property. One popular landscaping option is to include a water feature such as a pond in the yard. Often these ponds are stocked with fish and other selected species. Such ponds are similar to an indoor fish tank where the owner spends substantial time and resources to develop the water environment. Some fish and species that are introduced to the pond are often brightly colored so that they are easily seen in the pond water.
Whether brightly colored or otherwise, these pond-dwellers can be easy prey to a variety of predators. Consider for example, brightly colored or exotic goldfish stocked in a residential pond. Depending on the geography, such fish are hunted by birds such as herons and egrets as well as by mammals such as raccoons. In other geographic areas, ponds and contained bodies of water are inhabited by other hunted species which are pursued by a wide variety of animals and fowl.
Recognizing the significance of this issue, pond owners have gone to great lengths in attempting to protect their pond's inhabitants in a variety of ways. For example, many pond owners “drape” their ponds with netting to protect their fish from the attack of predators. Removing the net can be cumbersome and time consuming; hence, many pond enthusiasts leave the net on their ponds and do not get to enjoy the full beauty of their water feature. Others employ guard dogs to watch over the pond area. However, dogs are limited to policing shallow ponds and/or the edges of the water feature and disturb the pond's inhabitants. Other examples include constructing a chicken wire fence around the edge of the pond, layering chicken wire across the top of the pond at the water level, stringing fishing line across the pond, and motion-activated sprinklers. Each of these approaches provides limited success in repelling predators while also detracting from the ascetic value of the protected water feature.
The above and other difficulties continue to present challenges to the prevention of predators attacking water-residing species.